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Ham and Fowl, Potted

A preserved mixture of ham and chicken trimmings simmered with herbs and mace, then set in clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Ham and Fowl, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the meat from a cold chicken and place it in a mortar with the cooked ham.

  2. Pound the meat to a pulp and season with pepper and a pinch of pounded mace.

Make the glaze

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chicken bones and trimmings with sweet herbs, mace, and enough water to cover.

  2. Boil until reduced to a glaze.

Combine and pot

  1. Mix the glaze with the pounded meat and clarified butter.

  2. Transfer the mixture to small jars and pour clarified butter over the top.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + chickentop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooked ham
Adds savoury flavour and body to the pounded meat mixture.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and seals the surface, keeping the potted meat moist.
Chicken bones and trimmings
Boiling them yields a gelatinous glaze that binds and moistens the meat.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced to a glaze. Boiling the bones and trimmings long enough concentrates the collagen-rich liquid. A well-reduced glaze sets firmly and gives the potted meat its binding texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, pepper, chicken, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, chicken, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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